Folklore & the Tea Ceremony
The study of folklore provides one framework with which to analyze the tradition of the Japanese tea ceremony.
Sims and Stephens offer the following working definition of folklore:
“Folklore is informally learned, unofficial knowledge about the world, ourselves, our communities, our beliefs, our cultures, and our traditions that is expressed creatively through words, music, customs, actions, behaviors, and materials. It is also the interactive, dynamic process of creating, communicating, and performing as we share that knowledge with other people” (2011, 8).
It is important to interpret the tea ceremony as part of its changing role throughout history. Historically, the practice of the tea ceremony was limited to the wealthy, consisting of warriors and the ruling families. Those are the communities that built the framework and defined the particulars of the tea ceremony. The historical customs and materials associated with the tea ceremony are inextricably linked to the folk groups they were created by. However, the practice of the tea ceremony is no longer limited to those small folk groups, and thus the boundaries of acceptable practice have widened. As Handler and Linnekin argue in their article “Tradition, Genuine or Spurious”, tradition is an interpretive process that is inherently a symbolic construction (1984). Thus, it is just as important and valid to study how the tea ceremony has changed over time, and how it is currently practiced.
Folk Groups
Men and Women in the Tea Ceremony
Research on the Tea Ceremony: "Crafting Identity as a Tea Practitioner in Early Modern Japan: ÅŒtagaki Rengetsu and Tagami Kikusha"
Rebecca Corbett, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Japanese Studies at Stanford University, breaks down the folk groups that practice the tea ceremony into men and women. Her article “Crafting Identity as a Tea Practitioner in Early Modern Japan: ÅŒtagaki Rengetsu and Tagami Kikusha” discusses how the tea ceremony has changed from its origins in the 16th century to the modern day. According to her research, tea culture has typically been portrayed as a male activity, and men’s tea practice is seen as an intellectual and philosophical activity. On the other hand, women’s tea practice has been centered around learning comportment and manners (Corbett 2014). She argues that “two modes of tea practice—learning tea as a means of cultivating the mind and displaying aesthetic knowledge, and learning tea as a means of cultivating genteel appearance and social graces—should not be understood as representing men’s tea practice and women’s tea practice” (2014).
As evidence for her argument, Corbett examines the lives of two nuns, ÅŒtagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875) and Tagami Kikusha (1753–1826). Their contributions to the practice of tea ceremony are proof that women have in fact been active in both modes of tea practice. These two women were so active in tea culture that they created and used their own utensils for the tea ceremony. Corbett concludes that women in early modern Japan could be connoisseurs and collectors of tea utensils as art, defying the traditional stereotype that women are thought to have had little or no involvement in tea culture in early modern Japan (2014). Indeed, women have been engaging in the realm of aesthetic connoisseurship, knowledge, and display within tea practice for much longer than was previously thought.
